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Veal Stew

A stew of veal and potatoes simmered in a butter‑flour‑milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Veal Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the veal and potatoes

  1. Cover the veal with boiling water and add salt.

  2. Simmer until the veal is tender.

  3. Add the potatoes and cook until tender.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour.

  2. Add the cold milk and stir until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the veal broth to the mixture.

Combine and serve

  1. Remove bones from the veal and combine everything in the pot.

  2. Simmer for an additional 5 minutes, then serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main meat, becoming tender and flavoring the broth during simmering.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, softening in the broth to make the stew heartier.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk mixture into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and carries the flour to form the roux base.
Cold milk
Adds creaminess to the sauce once whisked into the hot roux.

The step that matters

Adding the cold milk to the roux. Cold milk added to a hot butter and flour mixture can clump if not stirred constantly. Stirring until smooth lets the starch disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens without lumps.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, flour, milk):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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